• The Hong Kong of Africa? Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-01-08). I don't know much about Bouake, the second largest metropolis in the Ivory Coast, but as peace establishes itself in that formerly war-torn country the BBC makes it sound like the city is heading in the right direction: Bouake is the ex-rebel capital of "Soroland", as the zone is sometimes… (Linked Friday 2010-01-08.)
• $250 fine for waving one's hands. Don't Tase Me, Bro! (2010-01-08). The War on the Informal Sector (Cont’d) / Waving While Latino. In which socioeconomic cleansing meets international apartheid, as the arbitrary government over the town of Oyster Bay, New York, proposes to inflict $250 fines on local residents working as day laborers, if they “solicit employment” in public, which can mean just about anything, including, but not limited to, “shouting at cars, waving arms or signs, making hand signals, approaching motor vehicles or standing in public roads facing in the direction of oncoming traffic.” Of course, both the intent and the practical effect of the law is to provide government police with another weapon in their legal arsenal to harass and threaten peaceful immigrant workers, in a deliberate effort to drive them out of public spaces. (Linked Friday 2010-01-08.)
• Border thugs are thugs around the world, hate people & computers. Xaq Fixx, Everyone's Blog Posts – FR33 Agents (2009-12-15). I am sorry we blew up your laptop, Welcome to Israel Woman went to Israel and when they didn’t like they way she answered questions they shot her laptop, 3 times, saying it might have been a bomb. click the link at the top for the full sotry. They have… (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• How would Michael Palin say "Quod erat demonstrandum"? 360 (2010-01-09). The letters QED (or the unabbreviated "quod erat demonstrandum" ["which is what was to be proved"]) are often used to indicate the end of a formal proof.  This longstanding tradition goes back to a style of proof writing, where the culminating sentence of the argument gives a recapitulation of the… (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• The Big Blue Crime Wave. William Grigg, LewRockwell.com Blog (2010-01-08). Amid a world-historic economic collapse and the emergence of a fully-orbed doctrine of official impunity, an increasing percentage of those hired by the State to protect "public safety" are freelancing as undisguised criminals. Spacer Rapist on Patrol: Marcus Jackson, a patrol officer with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, was arrested last… (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• Perverted Police. LewRockwell.com Blog (2010-01-09). Rapists on patrol. (Cont’d, cont’d, cont’d.) Trigger alert. (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• "Keep 'em coming!" Nevada Prison Watch (2010-01-09). Anarchist Communications: “The latest Prison Action Newsletter, of January 2010, is out now!” (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• Big Lebowski rewritten as a work of Shakespeare. Xeni Jardin, Boing Boing (2010-01-08). “The knave abideth.” Sweet baby Jesus, the attention to detail in this sucker is just mindblowing! What a thing of beauty. Here’s the carpet-staining scene: WOO: Rise, and speak wisely, man–but hark; I see thy rug, as woven i’the Orient, A treasure from abroad. I like it not. I’ll stain… (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• Spare the taser spoil the toddler. Don't Tase Me, Bro! (2010-01-09). Men In Uniform (Cont’d.) Officer Kevin McCann, Dellroy Police Department. Dellroy, Ohio. Officer Kevin McCann was arrested in Canton on assault charges, for torturing his girlfriend’s 3-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son using a wooden paddle and a “Taser-like device.” The abuse was discovered after the children were taken to the hospital with marks and bruises. (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• Claiborne grand jury will not hear testimony in shooting case – Shreveport Times. "Bernard Monroe" – Google News (2010-01-09). The white government cops who gunned down Bernard Monroe — an frail 73-year old black man in Homer, Louisiana, who was never accused of any crime, and who was gunned down in his own home at a family reunion — base the entire justification for the shooting on the claim that Monroe was holding a gun. About 14 eyewitnesses say that the police are lying, and that Monroe was holding nothing more dangerous than a water-bottle. Now that a government prosecutor has called a government grand jury to “investigate,” he won’t be calling any of those witnesses. I am sure that we can count on government to insist on objectivity and accountability for its own hired muscle in this case. (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• Sumner on Experts. Will Wilkinson, Will Wilkinson (2009-12-29). I agree: In the last year my respect for authority, which was never very high, has fallen to a new low.  As I read each interview in the Big Think, it becomes more and more obvious that the experts don't have a clue as to what went wrong, nor how… (Linked Saturday 2010-01-09.)
• Easterly, Acton, and Visionary Leadership. Art Carden, The Beacon (2010-01-09). In prepping for my appearance on Radio Free Market this afternoon I've done some thinking about society's search for Great Leaders and Great Men. This made me think about a recent post on Aid Watch by William Easterly that everyone should read and a few passages in Democracy in Deficit,… (Linked Sunday 2010-01-10.)
• Man Threatened by Gang for Giving Water to Neighbors. Fr33 Agents (2010-01-10). The Border Police State Vs. Private Property and Human Kindness (Linked Sunday 2010-01-10.)
• They Could Be Twins. Daily Brickbats (2010-01-10). Oops, Our Bad. (Cont’d.) (Linked Sunday 2010-01-10.)
• I Don't Feel Truant. Daily Brickbats (2010-01-10). Perpetual State of Supervision (Cont’d) (Linked Sunday 2010-01-10.)
• Never Enough. Daily Brickbats (2010-01-10). Sado-statism Vs. Human Decency and Grieving Widows in Alabama (Linked Sunday 2010-01-10.)

• timbray: Some travel-biz group should start organizing civil disobedience. Polite firm en-masse refusal to go along with security theatre. Twitter / timbray (2009-12-28). timbray: Some travel-biz group should start organizing civil disobedience. Polite firm en-masse refusal to go along with security theatre. (Linked Tuesday 2009-12-29.)
• How Automakers Abuse Intellectual Property Laws To Force You To Pay More For Repairs. Techdirt (2009-12-29). “… as cars become more sophisticated and computerized, automakers are locking up access to those computers, and claiming that access is protected by copyrights. Mechanics are told they can only access the necessary diagnostics if they pay huge sums — meaning that many mechanics simply can’t repair certain cars, and car owners are forced to go to dealers, who charge significantly higher fees. There is no legitimate basis for this at all. It’s a clear misuse of intellectual property laws — which were never designed for this sort of thing — to prevent independent auto mechanics from repairing newer cars.” [R.G.: Right on, except that it’s not a “misuse.” The whole point of Intellectual Protectionism always has been to lock out independents from peacefully competing with privileged incumbents. The thing itself is the abuse.] (Linked Tuesday 2009-12-29.)
• Touché mesofunny, Epic Win FTW (2009-12-20). Submitted by: dunno source via Submission Page (Linked Tuesday 2009-12-29.)
• Advisor: Deleting emails could make you happier. Lisa Katayama, Boing Boing (2009-12-03). If people were just more aggressive about deleting irrelevant things and relevant things aren’t that important, they would probably be happier. Because I’m happier. So there must be something to it. Emails only take up virtual space, not literal square footage, so it’s easy to let them pile up. But… (Linked Tuesday 2009-12-29.)
• RIAA, MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce declare war on blind and disabled people. Boing Boing (2009-12-29). Intellectual Protectionism Vs. Technological Civilization and Accessibility for the Disabled (Linked Tuesday 2009-12-29.)

The latest news from the Traditional Values front comes to us from Roseville, Michigan, where we find that the defenders of public decency are marshalling their forces to preserve our precious culture and heritage–by launching a legal assault against a local artist for his reproduction of part of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s ceiling for the Sistine Chapel:

In Ed (Gonzo) Stross’ eyes, his variation on Michelangelo’s Creation of Man mural is art.

In 39A District Judge Marco Santia’s eyes, it’s a crime.

Santia ordered jail time, a fine and probation — a sentence that sounds a little harsh to a state senator, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan and fellow artists.

Santia ordered Stross, 43, to serve 30 days in jail, do two years’ probation and pay a $500 fine for violating a city sign ordinance. Roseville officials said letters were prohibited on the mural and Eve’s exposed chest is indecent.

Besides jail time and the fee, Stross is to tastefully cover Eve’s breasts before reporting to the Macomb County Jail on Monday morning, and to paint over love by May 1.

— Detroit Free Press 2005-02-18: Muralist’s vision has jail staring him in face

(Link thanks to Copyfight 2005-02-23 and No Treason 2005-02-22.)

Of course, a bare-breasted Eve wasn’t too much for Pope Julius II; he not only approved of its public display, but was glad to have it on the ceiling of the most important church in all of Western Christendom. You might have thought that some of our traditional values include glorifying God and Creation through beautiful art, or at least respect for the achievements of our forebearers. But when it comes to the community standards of our day–which are, after all, mostly set by reference to the sensitivities of the most obnoxiously vocal and litigious segments of the Religious Right–it appears that all of these pale in comparison to the importance of ensuring that no child see boobies, ever. Anyway, since when have traditional values had anything to do with history?

This, it seems, is the modern Religious Right: a horde of know-nothing busybodies, apparently hell-bent on making Mencken’s definition of puritanism look plausible, and going to the mat to enforce the values of a past that–fortunately for the achievements of Western civilization–never existed.

Further reading

• GT 2004-03-10: Traditional marriage